We knew Microsoft was ready to offer Call of Duty on all platforms. We learn that the firm would also be ready to offer the franchise on competing Game Pass subscription services.
The Call of Duty franchise quickly became one of the pivots of Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard. The agreement allowing Call of Duty to be offered for 10 years at Nintendo and Steam obviously did not convince the FTC, which decided to sue Microsoft to block the takeover.
We now learn that the firm would have gone even further, to the point of offering Sony to offer the game on the PlayStation Plus service.
The subscription market in the sights of the authorities
Whether in the statement of the FTC or other authorities like the CMA in the UK, two markets seem to worry the bodies the most with this takeover. The first is that of game consoles by excluding Nintendo, in other words the harmful consequences that this takeover could have for Sony, the market leader.
The second, which interests us here, is the emerging market for subscription video game offers. The Xbox Game Pass already has a significant weight in this market, but since the middle of the year, it has been joined by a major competitor: the PlayStation Plus.
According to Bloomberg, Microsoft would therefore have ended up proposing to its major competitor Sony to offer call of duty not only on PlayStation for 10 years, but also potentially on PlayStation Plus. Sony is unlikely to agree to such a contract. By refusing to sign, Sony can plead a possible future exclusivity of call of duty with the authorities. If the firm were to sign such a contract, Sony would be in a more difficult position to oppose the takeover.
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